Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The grapes were ready but we were not. We hadn't prepared the vats required for the red.
Lucille said the latest we could push out was Thursday. More rain was forecast for Friday.
I called Jean-François, the blue monster's driver, and left a message. If we didn't get the
machine for Thursday we might have to harvest in the rain, which was bad. If we waited
for the rain to stop it could be worse as rot might get established in our vineyard. We were
on a knife edge.
Before leaving, Lucille reviewed our log of the wine's progress. She checked the mus-
tometer which we used to measure the density of the wine and hence its progress through
fermentation.
'Are you adjusting for the temperature?' she asked.
'No.' I felt like an errant schoolgirl.
'You must start as you wish to continue,' said Lucille imperiously. '
Pour faire le bon trav-
ail
we must adjust and fill in the graph so it's easy to track the wine's progress.'
I promised to try harder to 'do good work'. With little time to eat or sleep in the last couple
of days, filling in the graph had seemed like a nicety.
Ad and Lijda left to return to Holland, leaving us to the Harvest from Hell. John, Sean
and I were dog-tired but the whites needed work and there was preparation for the merlot
to be done. The sauvignon blanc and the white blend had finished their period of cold set-
tling and were ready to start fermentation. I prepared the cultivated yeast using my cake
scale, a thermometer and other sundry items from the kitchen. Once the yeast was added,
the whites entered a quieter phase where the key activity was monitoring the fermentation
and, of course, not to be forgotten, filling in the graph... if I didn't want my knuckles rapped
by our serious
oenologue
.
It was nearly midnight when I dredged the last of the rinsing water off the winery floor.
The faint hum of harvest machines could still be heard in the distance. Farmers were work-
ing all hours to get their grapes in because of the rising risk of rot.
Jean-François called to let us know it was all go for Thursday. He sounded exhausted. He
was working almost round the clock. Thierry Daulhiac assured me that this was the most
difficult
vendanges
he could remember. Normally, in our area, the harvest took place over
about four weeks with at least a week between each grape variety. This year, because of the
weather, it was all happening the same week and we were getting a baptism of fire.
Sean and John worked through the day, cleaning the vats, pipes and buckets for the merlot
harvest. Around ten that evening Sean prepared to spray tartaric acid onto the cement vat
we planned to use as I read the French instructions.
'This says it needed to be done at least three days before use.'
'Feck,' exclaimed Sean, 'you'd better phone Lucille.'
'C'est vrai,'
said Lucille, thankfully answering her phone in spite of the late hour, 'the tar-
taric acid needs several days to dry otherwise the wine could react with the cement of the
tank. You must find another vat.'
